Nasa announced on Monday that researchers have found flowing water on Mars, raising the odds of finding life on the planet. On the internet, this impressive discovery was celebrated with due gravity – or indeed a lack of it.

Among other things, the news prompted the internet to offer a picture of a glass of water sitting on top of a Mars bar.

While this image was quickly shared across social media, Nasa’s Monday press conference was not in fact the genesis of the “water on top of a Mars bar” meme. A similar image can be seen here, on a message board in a post dated 17 February 2008; and here, on a website for molecular modeling software.

For those seeking some more original online reaction to Monday’s announcement, Twitter produced a flurry of jokes tied to California’s drought and the environmental degradation of the Earth.

Ryan Greenberg (@greenberg)

Be careful with that water, Mars, or before you know it you'll be taking 3-minute showers and there won't be any more almonds.

More serious online personalities chose to use the moment to dispel the notion that this was the first time water had been found on Mars. In March, scientists announced that a primitive ocean once existed on the red planet – and that was just the latest in a series of findings that have shown evidence of water.

Undaunted, some internet users provided a different kind of historical context to the discovery: